Spoilers: Spoilers for both 'Chosen' and Angel's season finale 'Home'.

Pairings: Dawn/Xander, with mention of other relationships past and present. 

A/N: This is going to be just this one chapter, based on the song 'Hotel Paper' by Michelle Branch. It's going to focus on Dawn and her thoughts and feelings after 'Chosen'. I got this idea not long after hearing 'Hotel Paper' for the first time and for those who are reading my other story 'A New Breed of Slayer' I will continue it soon enough.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  After many years of being empty the Hyperion Hotel had all of its room filled with bustling young Slayers dealing with the aftermath of the battle they had just survived. During the day the girls trained or lounged around driving anyone around who was not used to so many girls crazy. At night was a different story. The Slayers who had not returned home went out to hunt along with the two 'original' slayers. That night was no different. The rooms were all silent.

   Yet, Room 28 was not vacant that night. To an outsider the girl inside the room would seem like a normal 17 year old girl. In truth though she was Dawn Summers, sister to the slayer and the former Key to the Universe and all around invisible since the calling of every single potential in the world, Dawn Summers felt even more ordinary than ever now.

  Dawn's face was flushed with colour which indicated that she had been getting outside like any normal girl her age. It was a well known fact among the new residence of the Hyperion that during the day Dawn made herself scarce, going out for long walks and mostly only returning right before sun down. No one knew what Dawn did during her long hours of alone time, and whenever a Slayer offered to accompany her the teen declined quickly. Everyone seemed to think that Dawn looked extremely unhappy, even when she smiled and laughed a certain spark in her eyes was missing.

    Despite this no one took too much notice in her. They focused more on Xander who had seemed to have a hard time letting go of Anya. Dawn didn't even think that Buffy had noticed her own sister's sorrow. In her sister's eyes Xander had lost a lot more than Dawn, his eye and his lover. It seemed that Buffy was even farther away from Dawn than ever now. There was no question about it, when Buffy was not with Angel at the Wolfram & Hart office, training the new Slayer, or comforting Xander she was grieving herself for her loss of Spike.

    The teen did not feel guilty or selfish by wanting anyone to notice her. With Xander grieving over Anya she had lost what had become the only person who talked with her like she was adult, treated her like an equal. Dawn felt that it was about time that she got attention. The First Evil was out of the way, there were other slayers to take care of the rest of the evil of the world, why couldn't Buffy take a break? Why couldn't her sister open her eyes and notice, really notice, the pit of despair that Dawn seemed to have fallen into.

    It had been weeks since Dawn had lost everything. Her home, her life and she had even lost her sister. Buffy was now, more than ever, the 'slayer in charge'. Buffy was the one who had to deal with the Slayers who had decided to stick around rather than return home and visit their families. Buffy was the one who had to train the Slayers that Giles, Andrew, Wood and Faith were sending to her from all over the world. Dawn was nothing more than a shadow amongst the other girls who seem to have so easily slipped into her life and Buffy had so easily taken control of them and forgotten her own family.

    Dawn sat in her room. Since there were so many girls and not enough rooms for each to have their own Dawn was sharing her room with two Slayers, Vi and Rona. It was not that she minded sharing a room with them; they were as close to friends as Dawn had had since the whole town of Sunnydale had evacuated. Dawn just wished that things could be back to normal. That she could have her old room back, sleep in her own bed that was now buried under the rubble of Sunnydale. She wished that she could go back a whole year to before Tara died and just stay there, she didn't care if Buffy would go around having sex with Spike, she didn't care if Andrew and 'the nerds' were still plotting harmless ways to get rid of Buffy. She wanted to be back to a time where Tara and Willow were together, a time where she could be with two people who loved each other so and took good care of her.

   Although Dawn knew that Willow was finally happy again, she hated Kennedy. The Slayer was not like Tara or Oz, she was a brat and she was power hungry. Sometimes, sitting here in her room Dawn would write in her journal wishing for Oz to come into the hotel and sweep Willow of her feet, convincing Willow that maybe she wasn't Gay after all and Kennedy would fly off home. There were many reasons as to why Dawn hated Kennedy. Most high on her list was Kennedy's extreme hate for Buffy and her manner that implied that she should be the slayer in charge. Oz and Tara had been kind, they had treated Dawn kindly, but Kennedy was different, Kennedy could care less about any of Willow's friends or the other Slayers.

   Xander was one of the many reasons for Dawn's abandonment of the world of the slayers and her friends and family. Ever since Andrew had told Xander that Anya was indeed dead he had been changed. He had tried to put on a brave face, but arriving at the hotel had chosen a room and locked himself in it. Dawn hated how he seemed to be mourning, shutting himself off from the world. So, she had done the same, she went out during the day and stayed in her room writing at night. She wrote about her feelings towards Xander, her want for things to be like they used to be and so much more. In this room she could write, think and say whatever she liked to herself because she knew that nothing would ever leave this hotel room.

   Unfortunately her journal had soon filled itself up, and not having the money to purchase another she had resorted to writing on the aged hotel paper she had found in the room. Rona and Vi were hardly ever in the room so Dawn had no worry that they would read her secret thoughts. They only slept in the beds and used the washroom. Other than that they were out about in either the basement, foyer or outside.

    The teen stared down at her latest entry on the hotel paper. It was shorter than most of what she had written since arriving here and as most of what she had written was about Xander. Strange as it was, ever since the night she had found she was not a potential, even before that she had begun to develop feelings towards Xander. He was funny, sensitive and sometime he was even her knight in shining army helping Buffy out when she needed him. She envied Anya; she envied how she was able to catch Xander's attention every time she entered a room, she envied how much Xander seemed to love her despite all the wrong she had done to him, to others. She wanted Xander to look at her like he looked at Anya; she wanted to give Anya what Xander couldn't.

    The words Xander said to me that night often ring through my mind. 'You're not special, you're extraordinary.'  Those words touched my heart and even now bring tears to my eyes. I'm sitting in this room, alone and the only light is the one I'm using to see what I write here. I feel foolish because sometimes I feel that I'm glad that Anya's dead, but I'm really not. I liked Anya. She was fun and although said the wrong things at the wrong time she as still very helpful, and she made Xander happy. That was the important thing. But now that she's gone I feel that maybe I can finally have a shot. That's not really true though.

   I'm so young and naïve. Anya's gone, Xander's grieving and I'm sitting here acting like a child. I don't know why I've got to feel this way. Xander is so much older than I am has seen and done so much more than me. I don't know what to do because the only time I feel whole is when he's around, when he's with me, making me laugh. He's the only one like me now. We're not geniuses, or slayers, or vampires or even witches. We're the mortals. Sure, everyone is considered mortal, except Angel, but we don't have super strength, or abilities that can fight off even the most powerful demons.

  Xander said that he was the one who sees things and Caleb asked him if he was 'the one who sees things' right before poking his eye out. Sometimes I wonder if I was wrong about Xander being 'mortal' or 'normal' or if our very private moment was overheard by The First. It's not fair that Xander had to lose his left eye while Buffy walked away unscathed and even more powerful. She led them into the battle. I do love Buffy, but her ignorance towards Xander and I makes me angrier at her than ever. We're somehow not important enough for her. Buffy does visit Xander, but I feel as I watch her knock on his door now and then that it is only out of pity.

 I want to go to see Xander and console him, but I can't bring myself to do it. I'm afraid that I'll do something silly like tell him I love him, and I do. I could go outside and shout at the top of my lungs that 'Dawn Summers loves Xander Harris' but I don't. I watch all these people go about there business, couples kissing and having lunch and I wish that I was one of them. I am seventeen but I know that I love Xander more than I'll love anyone in my life, ever. Maybe I realized it too late. Maybe if I had realized it sooner things would be different. Maybe if I had really realized back when Xander told me that I was extraordinary we wouldn't be here now. Maybe, I would've let Xander take me away to wherever he had knocked me out with chloroform to bring me and maybe he could've loved me back.

  I never wanted this, but I've gotten it and no matter how much it hurts me to not have Xander there's nothing I can do. Maybe one day I'll get my chance. Until then I will try to live like everything is fine and dandy. I love him but there's nothing I can do. I cannot get him to leave Anya, to stop grieving for her. I cannot tell Buffy how I feel because not only would she be shocked but she wouldn't understand and anyway she hasn't even noticed my moods. All I can really do is sit here and write on this hotel paper, the wind blowing the faint smell of the ocean into my open widow and wish for Xander to realize how much I would love to love him and love me back.

   Dawn slipped this latest entry of her thoughts to the bottom of her pile of the hotel paper, suddenly feeling like a foolish girl with a crush. She knew that this was not just a crush though, a crush would not hurt this much. Dawn moved over to the window and sat down, staring out at the large city. She hardly saw Angel who had offered them this hotel to use; he spent all his time at the extravagant office than he and his gang had inherited for apparently destroying what could've been world peace. She didn't really care for seeing him either. She knew that if she asked Buffy to take her to the law firm, which she had seen only on her first day in LA, she would have to watch as Buffy and Angel did the little dance that they did. They so obviously still had feelings for each other, Angel jealous of how Buffy seemed to be handling Spike's 'death' and Buffy in return jealous of how much attention Angel was giving Cordelia. She didn't care for seeing that, not after it witnessing on the first day in LA.

   The night ticked away slowly for Dawn as she stared out at the moon wondering what Riley, Oz and others who had come in and out of their life were doing. Were they happy? Did they know what had happened to Sunnydale? The worlds seemed so big to Dawn, people she had loved so far away and she knew that she would probably never see them again, that Riley and Oz had been too hurt by Buffy and Willow to return. They'd likely use a whole chain of people to find out who had survived the big Sunnydale battle instead of coming directly to Los Angeles to ask Angel or to contact either the Slayer or the Witch. Dawn almost hated love. It ruined many friendships that were formed when break-ups occurred. Oz had left Sunnydale; they had only heard from him once, the same with Riley. Dawn had liked both men very much, but when their relationships with Willow and Buffy had ended, the friendship that they had had with any of the other Scoobies seemed to have terminated as well.

     Total darkness flooded the room. Dawn's lantern had died and the new moon held no light. The teen sighed feeling somewhat more miserable in the dark, remembering that she was hopeless. Her love was an unrequited one and she wished much for daylight so she could curl up in bed and watch re-runs of Dawson's Creek and drown in misery in the teen drama about those whose lives seemed much simpler without demons and vampires. Deciding that her dream-land was the safest place for her Dawn curled up in her bed, under the covers and closed her eyes. Sleep came quickly for her.

      Dawn's dreams held no relief for her. She awoke feeling just as despaired as she had been the night before. She lay bathed in sunlight for a few moments recalling her dream where she had admitted to Xander that she loved him and Anya and appeared and Xander had ran to her leaving Dawn alone in her misery as she was in her waking hours.

      When Dawn got out of bed she found herself not alone in the room as she was used to. The dark skinned slayer and the red headed slayer were both sleeping nearby. Wishing to be alone she left the room and walked the quiet halls of the hotel and for the first time realizing that for once she must be the first awake. Smiling at the prospect of having the hotel kitchen to herself for a while Dawn, as quietly as possible, scampered down the steps to the main floor and shoved the kitchen door open immediately heading to the fridge without even glancing around the room. She was starved as she had not eaten since four in the afternoon the previous day.

"Morning to you too Dawnie," a male voice laughed from somewhere behind her.

   Dawn's heart stopped upon hearing the voice. It was no doubt the one and only Xander Harris, the only male in the house as Giles, Andrew and Wood were globe trotting looking for Slayers. Waiting to catch her breath again and find her voice Dawn grabbed the chocolate milk off the shelf and slowly turned around, anticipating seeing Xander for the first time in two days. He was sitting at the counter drinking a glass of milk and eating some buttered toast. He looked good, even with his eye patch though Dawn felt a pang of sadness upon seeing it. His face seemed as young as always but his eyes were aged with sadness and the effect of the death of so many people whom he had cared for. "M-morning," Dawn finally managed, stuttering slightly and she felt her pulse rise.

"Haven't seen you in a while," Xander noted, "Every time I decide to venture out of my room you've been out."

"Well, I've been taking in LA," Dawn shrugged, trying to sound as casual as possible.

"And?" Xander enquired, "Is it all it's cut out to be?"

"Well, the last time I was here I was ten, but it hasn't changed much," Dawn shrugged, her palms were sweating and she nearly dropped the glass she got out of the cupboard, "It's just like you see in the movies really. In the daytime at least, I haven't exactly gone out at night."

"I know," Xander replied, "Willow's told me that you spend your nights in your room. I don't exactly understand why."

"Just don't feel like going out," Dawn told him, "I mean the slayers are taking care of all the Vamps so there's not much for me to do."

"Feeling useless too?" Xander cracked a grin at this and Dawn managed to smile as well, it was not a fake smile as most of her smiles lately had been but this one was genuine and somewhat shy.

"Yeah," Dawn nodded, "And it's not like Buffy pays much attention to me even if I do ask to help."

"She's got a lot on her mind," Xander reminded her, "She's got all these girls to look out for."

"But I'm her sister," Dawn pointed out, "She always tried before. No matter how angry at the world she was, she tried. Now, she doesn't even acknowledge that I exist. I mean, at least she goes to see you."

"She only comes to see me because she feels she had to," Xander sighed, "It's always pity visits when it comes to Buffy. Will, she comes to see me all the time when she's not looking for Potentials or with Kennedy. She comes because she wants to, because she's my best friend. Buffy comes though, pity or not she comes. You, on the other hand don't."

"I'm sorry," Dawn muttered, feeling more nervous. Xander would ask her why she didn't come and Dawn did not want to answer him. She was afraid of his reaction, afraid of what he would do or say if he found out.

"It's OK. Maybe no visit is better than a pity visit," Xander shrugged, "I know what you mean about Buffy. She's...different. She's one of my best friends and I can't help but notice it."

"Xand, I'm sorry about Anya," Dawn mention. Awkwardness followed Dawn's comment, and she wished she hadn't said anything. Xander did not need people to tell him how sorry they were, she knew this but she didn't know what else she could say. Xander needed people to not treat him as if her were going to break at any second, Dawn could relate. It was how everything treated her since her mother had died.

    Dawn was saved from anymore awkwardness by a group of potentials entering the kitchen giggling and arguing over who got the last piece of toast. Xander and Dawn shared a look before Xander retreated. By the time Dawn got out of the kitchen, Xander was no where in sight. She hated that she had been interrupted. It had been the first time she had been alone with Xander in a long while. The first time she had been with him since they had arrived in Los Angeles and Dawn had realized how much she loved him.

     After her run-in with Xander in the kitchen Dawn returned to her room, hesitating slightly when she passed Xander's door, almost mustering up the courage to knock and have a talk with him. Just be with him quietly if she had to. She had found herself happier than she had been in a long while downstairs in the kitchen talking with Xander, no matter how nervous she had been, or how grave their conversation had been.

     When Dawn returned to her room Rona was heading downstairs and Vi was sitting on Dawn's bed, putting on her shoes. The red head Slayer glanced up at Dawn and smiled before running out after Rona to go and eat some breakfast before Buffy awoke and began to group them up for their morning training. As far as Dawn could see Buffy was working the girls too hard. Especially Kennedy, Vi and Rona all of whom had remained with Buffy after the battle, they never got a break even though sometimes they got to train the newest Slayers who were going to train with Buffy for a month before going home to fight the evil in their own towns.

     Lying back down in her bed Dawn found her thoughts drifting back to Xander. It seemed she could only go moments without thinking of him. Of his gorgeous brown eyes, or eye, of his dark hair, and his goofy smile or the way he had looked at her that night after she had discovered she was not a Potential after all. Dawn relived that night often; it was what kept her from feeling down about herself. It reminded her that at least one person in the world thought she was extraordinary.

     Drifting off in her thoughts Dawn half wanted to get up and write on the hotel paper, write what she knew she would never tell anyone else. Instead she found herself doing something she hadn't done in so long, she took a nap. The dreamless morning nap came so easily to her and she found herself at ease as she floated through the darkness totally oblivious to anything going on around her.

   When she awoke Dawn was startled for the second time that day. The sun was now high in the sky, indicating that it was at least noon if not later. It was not the time that startled the teen though; it was that she was not alone in the room and it that it was neither of her roommates sitting at the desk she usually wrote at but none other than Xander Harris. He was dressed in baggy jean shorts and a plain navy t-shirt. He was watching her with a new interest. Dawn frowned and sat up, wondering what he was doing there.

"Afternoon," he greeted.

"What are you doing here?" Dawn wondered.

"Well, I got bored," Xander admitted, "For the first time in a long time I didn't want to sit alone in my room."

"So, why didn't you go downstairs?" Dawn questioned.

"And be around people who will feel sorry for me?" Xander raised and eye brow inquisitively.

"How do you know I don't feel sorry for you?" Dawn shot back playfully, keeping with the pattern that Xander had started neither really answering each other's questions.

"I can tell," Xander replied, finally answering straight out. Dawn then noticed something in Xander's hand, a piece of her hotel paper, panic raced across her features and her heart seemed to freeze up. She stared at Xander in shock and despair feeling violated that he had read her private thoughts, thoughts that she had thought to be safe.

   Xander seemed to pick up that Dawn had seen what he had in his hands. He looked down at the paper and Dawn could almost swear that he was blushing. Moments of silence passed each waiting for the other to speak. Dawn wanted him to say something, anything to indicate what he had read, to show some sign that he knew what she was feeling towards him. Finally, Xander did speak, "I-I came in here and you were asleep," He explained, "I didn't want to leave, for some reason I couldn't and then I saw these under your journal..."

"D-did, did you read them," panic was in every syllable of every word Dawn had managed to form.

"One," Xander confessed.

"Wh-which one?" fear seemed to amount in Dawn's chest. Her hotel paper journal was still clutched in Xander's hands. 

"The last one," Xander elaborated, "This one." He handed her the paper she had written the night before, the paper filled with her feelings toward Xander. Dawn could not speak, she waited for Xander to say more, to laugh or tell her that nothing could happen.

 When he said nothing Dawn seemed to become more wary and panicked, she opened her mouth to speak but she had no words to use. The feeling of violation was thick in the air around her, Xander had read her private thoughts, he had gone through her personal affairs and read her innermost secret. If her innermost secret had not been her love for him Dawn might have yelled at him or forgiven him but she could do neither of those things. She could neither speak nor move, she could not yell or cry she could just sit there and stare at the man she had come to love and wait for him to shatter her heart into a million pieces. The hotel paper that she had found on her desk after she had finished the last pages of her journal had been her salvation and now they had become her emotional demise.

"Dawn," Xander finally spoke, "Th-there's something very important I've got to tell you, something that I have not told anyone, ever. When I found out that Anya was d-dead, I was sad, but that passed and I felt guilty. I felt guilty that I was not more broken up about it, Anya was supposed to be the love of my life, and I had been so close to getting her back. I hid in my room because I was afraid of what everyone else would think of me if they found out what I was truly feeling. I realized that I hadn't wanted to be with Anya anymore. That I didn't love her as I used to and I felt guilty for not feeling so completely devastated and broken as I had the first time I lost her when I left her at the alter.

"See, I realized that I had fallen completely in love with someone else. Someone who had been so utterly concerned about me after the eye-poking preacher attacked my eye, put it upon herself to know exactly what the doctors had to do for my eye, who knew how to change my bandage to the tiniest detail. This girl, she understood me better than Anya, or even Willow ever had.

"But I knew that I couldn't have this girl. She was untouchable, off limits to me and I knew that I would forever have to admire her from afar. She was a beauty that was out of my league. And then I went into her room this morning and watched her sleep, looking like an angel. I wanted to leave because watching her just reminded me that what I felt towards her would never be returned, and it felt wrong for me to feel this way towards her. She was so young, and I had just lost the woman who everyone thought was the love of my life. Then, as I got up and tried to leave I saw her journal and underneath these papers from right here in the hotel. And as I looked at them I realized what they were and when I went to put them back the last one slipped from my hand. I read it and found out that this girl was feeling the same way I was feeling. That she loved me just as much as I loved her and was just as afraid as I was."

"Xander," Dawn stared in utter shock, waiting to wake up from this wonderful dream. When she didn't wake up Dawn felt tears rise in her eyes. The one thing she had been wishing for more than ever had just come true. Xander loved her; Xander Harris loved her, Dawn Summers.

"Dawnie, I love you."

"I love you too," tears spilled down Dawn's cheeks, Xander seemed on the verge of tears as well as he got up and sat down next to her, kissing her wet cheek and pulled her body close to his.

"I-I don't know what to do," Xander whispered into her hair, "I don't know what I can do. I'm not the serious intellectual; I'm the goofball that Buffy's always has to save from his demon dates. I-I don't know what I have to do."

"Xander, you're asking me?" Dawn laughed through her tears of joy, "The first guy I ever kissed turned out to be a Vampire who nearly sired me. I'm not one to ask for the love advice."

"What would Buffy think?" Xander murmured, "She already nearly killed me when she thought I was in love with you back before Anya and I announced our engagement."

"Who cares about Buffy?" Dawn wondered, "If you haven't noticed but she hasn't been on the protective sister front for a year now."

"Still, she won't be too happy," Xander reminded her.

"Xander, for once can Buffy not be the center of attention?" Dawn asked.

"Sure," Xander nodded.

"How long have you known?" Dawn wanted to know, Xander still held her close to him and she had only not let the reality of the whole situation sink in.

"For a while now," Xander said simply, "Maybe since the night I saw you so easily give up the spotlight. Then, I realized how alike we are. I only really knew after we got here."

    Silence wrapped around them as Dawn basked in the moment. This seemed totally unreal to her, the one person she loved more than anything, the one person who understood her felt the same way about her as she did him. Age didn't matter then, Buffy didn't matter, Anya and Willow and everyone else in the world didn't matter. They had found each other that morning; they had found out their love for one another, found out that what they had thought was unrequited was very much requited. Silently taking in the moment the two felt more grown up than ever, they felt more relief than they had felt in a long time but at the same time a heavy weight was put on their shoulders.  

"Dawn, we really need to face reality soon enough," Xander sighed, kissing Dawn's forehead, "Where do we go from here?"

"Where do you want to go?" Dawn wondered, looking up at Xander. His eye patch stung her heart a little and she looked into his remaining brown eye that was filled with love.

"I really don't know," he honestly replied.

"Ok," Dawn nodded slowly, "Then, can you just be kissing me now?" And Xander paused a second, seemingly contemplating whether or not he should, and Dawn could tell that he wanted too, it was written all over his features. Finally, not being able to stand it anymore Xander leaned in and kissed her.

   To Dawn this was reality, in that moment kissing Xander all her hopes and wishes came true. The couple did not need to deal with the questions of what would become of them, and how they would explain what had happened to the others. Right now, they finally both did what they had longed to do. Dealing with the outside world was the farthest from their minds as they kissed.

    For the first time since Sunnydale had been destroyed swallowing her home and her past up with it Dawn felt free, she felt as if she had found her home. When she had awoken with Xander in her room holding her deepest secrets Dawn thought that the papers would be her demise, the hotel papers had not shattered her heart but had made her complete. Thoughts that she had poured onto paper she had found in the room that had been assigned as her own had set Dawn free. Now, no matter what happened next Dawn knew that the one person she loved more than the world loved her back and no one thing could ruin that for her. Dawn felt thankful to the hotel paper, felt thankful that it had caught Xander's eyes and felt thankful that one paper had fallen from Xander's hands and allowed him to open up and tell her that he loved her. Dawn felt a new gratitude towards the hotel paper that had granted her greatest wish. She knew that from now on she would write mostly on hotel paper.